LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 7A: CONSUMERS 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Labels “can play a key role when it comes to trust-related properties of products or services, as consumers
do not have a reliable alternative source of this information” (Eberle et al., 2011, p. II).
Today in the German food market a huge variety of labels is in place. Up to date there are no food labels
in place that consider the whole products life cycle based on a LCA approach and at the same time cover all
important environmental impact categories. However, LCA would certainly be the most appropriate approach
to get insights on a products’ environmental performance even if today no commonly accepted approach
exists to assess and aggregate the environmental performance of food. In France such an approach is
under development. The approach is promising, in particular because the useability of the labels tested in the
pilot phase will be analysed and because of the involvement of various stakeholders. This is important because
results for the German market have shown that the useability of many labels for consumers is low because
it is sometimes difficult for consumers to understand what the message of the label is. Another important
fact is that it is quite difficult for consumers to find out at the point of sale which of the food labels is
reliable. But the success of an environmental food label will very much depend on the reliability of a labelling
scheme.
Thus, from a consumers’ perspective few but reliable food labels are needed in the market which deliver
clear and simple messages. In order that this could be achieved research is still needed:
Research on the translation of LCA results in understandable and thus appropriate information for
consumers that could be used in labels that really support more environmental friendly purchasing
decisions;
on the determining factors of useability of labelling schemes for consumers, and
on an appropriate and thus agreeable aggregating assessment methodology for the environmental
performance of food.
Furthermore, politics is requested to support labelling of attributes of confidence by providing a general setup
that prevents misuse of labels and misguidance of consumers.
5. References
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Institut für Wirtschaft und Ökologie, Universität St.Gallen, St.Gallen, Switzerland
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